Tag Archives: He’s

How might we know you: My partner Ami Sadeh and I helped create the BearDance events.

Type of car: Blue 2008 Nissan Altima Coupe.

Best car memory? Driving my Nissan 350Z the first time with my partner around town with the top down!

Funniest road trip story: I don’t know if it’s funny or sad, but I had an audition in Tennessee and a drunk driver sliced off a big chunk of metal off the side of the trunk. It was my dad’s Oldsmobile Delta 88. I had to tie that chunk of metal back on the car as it flapped all the way back to Cincinnati where I lived.

Hmmm… we vote sad. OK, buy or lease? Lately I prefer leasing. I get the itch for something new or different about every three to four years. It doesn’t hurt that you can get a bit more car for less money per month!

You play the flute, but ever in the car? I think I’ve played it in my partner’s car while he’s been driving. It’s not at all practical for the driver and it doesn’t work well in the passenger seat either. There are better places to practice. Now I will practice finger patterns for music on the steering wheel from time to time though, and that’s a great way to practice without the instrument.

What do you jam out to? NPR or BPM on satellite radio. Sometimes it’s Beethoven or Lady Gaga.

Don’t you musclebear types drive Jeeps or big trucks usually? Am I really that now? Ha! Maybe I do need to get the requisite truck! I’m not about all my image with my car, it’s more about the driving experience for me, and I like fun-to-drive cars usually as long as they are roomy enough for me.

Since it’s hot as hell out, how’s your A/C? It is fantastic! I’m lucky to have a garage to park in at home so that it’s not all heated up when I leave the house in the summer, but even when it’s been out in the sun, it cools down very quickly.

Sounds great. So, one last thing: flootist or flautist? Well, it can be both actually.

— Rich Lopez

This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition August 26, 2011.

Seth Stambaugh, the 23-year-old student teacher booted from an Oregon elementary school in October after answering a student's question about whether he was married (and explaining that legally he couldn't marry another man), and then reinstated after threats of a lawsuit, has settled with Sexton Mountain Elementary School's school district for $ 75,000. Stambaugh, who will graduate from Lewis & Clark College in the summer, says he'll donate at least $ 10k to two youth-oriented local non-profits. The school will also "provide leadership training concerning issues related to sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression," according to the settlement details. Looks like Stambaugh's "professional judgment" — originally described by Beaverton School District officials as questionable when they transferred him to another school — was just fine, after all. Well not for Aaron Krikava, the father who originally complained about Stambaugh's in-classroom gayness; Krikava yanked his son out of Stambaugh's class.

"Chris Staples said someone threw a rock through his window with a piece of paper attached that was covered in anti-gay slurs. "I was watching TV and just finished smoking a cigarette and I heard this big thud. Boom!" Staples told Channel 2’s George Howell.

The rock had a threatening note attached. "It said, ‘we know you're gay. And God hates gays. You won't be raping anybody in the county and God's going to make sure that you burn in hell.’ And something about my daddy… my daddy will make sure you burn in hell,"

Then hours later, he woke up to flames filling his bedroom. Channel 2 Action News reporter Amanda Cook spoke with Staples mother about the Sunday fire.

“We are just lost,” said Staples' mother, who did not want to be identified. His mother said she heard a commotion and saw fire coming from her son’s house next door. She said she ran out to find Staples lying in the yard. She said she thought he was dead. “The house was black. And all I could see was an orange glow behind my head," Staples said.

Bentley told a big crowd at Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, where the late civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once was pastor, that he believed it was important for Alabamians ''that we love and care for each other."

''I was elected as a Republican candidate. But once I became governor … I became the governor of all the people. I intend to live up to that. I am color blind," Bentley said in a short speech given about an hour after he took the oath of office as governor.

Then Bentley, who for years has been a deacon at First Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa, gave what sounded like an altar call.

"There may be some people here today who do not have living within them the Holy Spirit," Bentley said. ''But if you have been adopted in God's family like I have, and like you have if you're a Christian and if you're saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister."

Bentley added, ''Now I will have to say that, if we don't have the same daddy, we're not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother."

Barack Obama said yesterday, before signing the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, that he was "not going to make more news" by trumping this week's big gay news by stating he was suddenly going to back same-sex marriage, an issue on which he's said his views are "evolving." Asked about that position again at Wednesday's post-repeal presser, Obama repeated that his "feelings are constantly evolving" — but still believes is between a man and a woman. Which means, for the time being, Obama publicly supports gay men and women who want to die for their county, but not gay men and women who want to marry the ones they love.

The Christianists at True Life have put together an astoundingly nasty “ex-gay” presentation in which they assure us, that YES, of course God loves homosexuals. But you’re still going to die in agony decades early because of your detestable sins. The clip’s host says that he’s glad God gave him AIDS, because that made them SO much closer! Deadly disease = eternity jackpot! True Life even pulls out some old quotes from Andrew Sullivan and presents them with no context. (Note how the entire clip is done sotto voce, because that makes the bile sound nicer.)(Via – Good As You)

Today's Ricky Martin interview with Oprah was pretty sprawling, but I'm still gonna buy the book! They covered everything from having his heart broken (for a man he was willing to give up his career for) and coming out to his parents to, yes, his romancing the ladies.

Alan Cumming has, in the past, vocally supported Barack Obama politically and in other ways. It seems like these days, the bisexual actor has completely changed his tune. He's now come out against the president and has some pretty harsh words for him. He tells the Herald Scotland:

“We keep hearing that Obama is an ally, that ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ will end under his watch, but what do we actually get? Diddly squat thus far on a federal level, and in addition to that some very offensive statements that would have made the Republicans look bad. When America is full of hatred of all kinds, but especially hatred towards young gay people, what message is the President sending when he repeatedly goes out of his way to spread the message that the gay population is not worthy of the respect that everyone else is?"